There are good and bad fats, nutritionists say. But not all polyunsaturated fats, the so-called good fats, are created equal. CA&ES food chemist Ameer Taha is exploring whether eating too much linoleic acid—a type of polyunsaturated fat found mainly in vegetable oils and processed foods—can cause chronic inflammation, migraine headaches and other health problems.

Do you know why it’s called iceberg lettuce? In 1926, Bruce Church—University of California graduate, farmer and founder of Fresh Express—developed a way to get his head lettuce from Salinas to the East Coast by loading the freshly-harvested crop in train cars and covering it with ice. As the lettuce-laden cars rolled into stations, folks would call out, “The icebergs are coming, the icebergs are coming.”

Sixteen UC Davis researchers have been named in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2019 list released by the Web of Science Group, which compiles statistics on scientific publishing. The list identifies scientists and social scientists who have published multiple papers ranking in the top 1 percent by citations in a particular field and year, over a 10-year period.

Citation counts represent how often a particular paper has been cited in other scientific publications.

Romaine lettuce and leafy greens contaminated with E. coli. Eggs, raw chicken or turkey exposed to salmonella. Given frequent reports of food recalls, consumers may believe contaminations are on the rise in the United States.

Farmers spend a lot of time and money controlling weeds and other pests, and often have to turn to chemical fumigants to keep the most destructive pests at bay. Farmers also wrestle with what to do with low-value byproducts of crop production, such as skin, seeds and hulls from fruit, vegetable and nut processing.

What if those agricultural waste streams could generate alternatives to chemical fumigants and make farming more productive, profitable and environmentally friendly?